Guru Maharaj visits Russia !

Dear Godbrothers and Godsisters,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Jaya Gurudeva.

Every occasion to meet Guru Maharaj is the ever fresh enlivening
experience. Although it's very late, because we have met Srila
Bhagavatpada I cannot but write about his wonderful visit to our small
temple in Central Russia. Although his schedule only gets more turbulent, he found some time to fulfil the promise he gave during the
RY here in July. Back then he was hurrying to Germany and told us that he would come in month. This time he has to visit again many places in the Golden ring area. The car left Nijniy Novgorod at 16.00, but the road was unusually packed with cars and that delayed Guru Maharaj. We participated and prepared garlands, ingredients for abhisheka. At 19.40 Gurudeva has come very illustrious and energetic, but apologizing. He was so tender, that couldn't resist bathing of his
soft lotus feet. A few disciples made everything quickly. We then went
for the lecture. Guru Maharaj enquired the devotees, what verse should he lecture on.

There was a voice: "Tad viddhi pranipatena..."
- "Ok, then it's 4.34. Actually I haven't lectured on this verse for a
long time".

Guru Maharaj started by stating the necessity of having a teacher in
any sphere of life, more so in spiritual. Then he described the qualities of spiritual master. I have remembered some:

- vaco vegam...
- is in the line of spiritual masters;
- practises what he preachers;
- repeats the message of previous acaryas.

Guru Maharaj compared himself to a parrot, that repeats what he had
learnt. He joked about one family of devotees that made their parrot
chant Hare Krishna mantra.

Srila Bhagavatpada has described the perils of material life. Having
just returned from trip in North America, he had an example ready.
After discussing with some devotees practising doctors the state of
health in the USA, he has found out, that they are often in stress, and because of that people are deprived of sleep. Their stress like life come from financial, emotional and other pressure. They are earning hundreds of thousands of $, yet they cannot sleep, because the more you earn, the more you spend. On the other hand, Guru Maharaj cited the example of his disciple, who is also a doctor, but in Turkmenistan, where he earns 30 $ a month manages to subsist.

The lecture lasted together with questions for about 40 minutes yet
it was very deep and personal. Guru Maharaj told, that we have
discussed the whole philosophy in 30 minutes everyone was satisfied
(that is the unique quality of Guru Maharaj - he satisfies everyone
with his pleasant speech).

There were a few questions:

Q. - Where to get the determination to serve spiritual master ?

A. - From attentive chanting.

Q. - How do you see the area developing spiritually, what would you suggest?

A. - Invite people to your houses, have Nama hattas, preach in public places like colleges, etc. KC is a live philosophy. Invite people to the Sunday feast.

Then we were lucky to serve Guru Maharaj some prasadam (sabji, mung dahl, fruits, salad, juice). He took some specially cooked bread for him he had with him.

After that there was a quick darsan for the disciples and aspiring
disciples. Again I had the oportunity to wonder how sharp is memory
of Guru Maharaj. He remembers even minute details of interections he
had with devotees. Like this time there was one mataji, who asked
for pranama mantra already some time ago, but somehow she hadn't
passed the test. Last time Guru Maharaj told her she could chant
pranama mantra provided she passed the test. She decided to ask Guru
Maharaj this time again for pranama mantra. She wasn't notable for any external reason, yet Srila Bhagavatpada remembered her very well: "I already told you, that you can if you pass the test, have you passed it?"

Later we discussed the meeting with disciples and agreed, that it went really smoothly. We realized that it was our most important duty to organize reception of Guru Maharaj the best we can. It made e difference, when we met him during local RY and there were many
set backs and this time, when all the disciples concentrated on his coming. We made it a rule, that whenever Guru Maharaj, disciples should delegate all other duties in order to receive well Guru Maharaj. Otherwise in the rush of different preaching arrangements, one easily gets bewildered what is the goal and what are means. Like this time I was very eager to know, what Guru Maharaj wants in regard to developing of the area, preaching strategies. I was going to ask this question for a long time and thought it very important. Yet when I asked Guru Maharaj, he treated it as something insignificant. "Just continue what you are doing", - he dropped. I realized that in fact there is little one can do in practical field, yet if we develop loving attitude towards spiritual master, that is the success.

This time there were some imperfections in our dealings with Guru Maharaj:

1) there was only one mike (good sound system is his request all the time);
2) there was lota instead of glass for drinking water (he told us to replace);
3) and the worse is that we didn't record that lecture. That shows
how far we are from inderstanding the position of spiritual master.

Your servant,
Abhinanda das
Vladimir